1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a broadcast communication system and a broadcast communication method.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Heretofore, not only in a broadcast communication, but also in a point-to-point communication, a traffic control function block in a reception side or a destination side uses a method of transmitting a regulation signal at the time when congestion is detected, and transmitting a congestion release signal at the time when the congestion is released. Further, a sender side generally uses a monitoring and controlling method based on a response timer for measuring a response time from transmission and a retry frequency due to destination busy.
JPA-8-88651 discloses a broadcast traffic control system based on timer monitoring. That is, the transmission of messages is divided into a communication heavy (concentrated) period, a communication light (dispersed) period and an intermediate period. If the transmission is in the communication light period, broadcast communication is selected, and if the transmission is in the communication heavy period, point-to-point communication is selected. The timer monitoring is used to judge the type of the communication period.
However, the foregoing conventional technique has the following disadvantages:
A first disadvantage is that if the broadcast communication is carried out when general calls are most frequently made, equipments such as terminals become inaccessible, so that there is caused a probability that the broadcast communication would fail even when a timer is used or retrials are made.
A second disadvantage is that it is not certain for a transmission side of the broadcast communication what extent address simultaneous development of the broadcast communication can be made to even when a network resource is rarely used because the usage rate of the network resource is not certain, and thus the address simultaneous development of the broadcast communication is carried out within a limited address range in order not to magnify the effect on general calls to the network side, so that the network resource cannot be sufficiently used.
A third disadvantage is that when a broadcast communication is carried out, it is not certain for a user instructing the broadcast communication whether the broadcast communication is terminated until the user""s desired date and hour, so that it is unclear whether the delivery can be completed until a desired time.
An object of the present invention is to increase the service completion rate of a broadcast communication service in order to enhance the service performance, and to shorten a service completion time of the broadcast communication when the resource using rate of a network by a general point-to-point call is low.
Another object of the present invention is to carry out a broadcast communication adaptive to a traffic at a service starting time point in the future subsequent to the current time, thereby suppressing the effect of a point-to-point communication on general calls to prevent impairment of users"" utilization of the point-to-point communication.
Further object of the present invention is to notify a broadcast communication commander of a service completion prediction time to give the commander information to determine an operation, thereby enhancing the operability for the commander.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a broadcast communication system which comprises: a first terminal for transmitting broadcast data and transmitting a time when the broadcast data transmission starts; a first message communication processing apparatus for receiving the broadcast data and start time transmitted from the first terminal and transmitting the broadcast data and start time received from the first terminal; one or more second message communication processing apparatus for receiving the broadcast data and start time transmitted from the first message communication processing apparatus and transmitting the broadcast received from the first message communication processing apparatus; and one or more second terminals for receiving the broadcast data transmitted from the one or more second message communication processing apparatus; wherein the second message communication processing apparatus comprises means for generating executable broadcast traffic information on the basis of past traffic information and the start time; and wherein the first message communication processing apparatus comprises: means for retrieving the executable broadcast traffic information from the second message communication processing apparatus; means for scheduling transmission of the broadcast data from the first message communication processing apparatus on the basis of the executable broadcast traffic information.
The first message communication processing apparatus may further comprise means for inquiring the first terminal as to whether to execute the scheduled transmission of the broadcast data.
A time when the transmission of the broadcast data ends may be estimated on the basis of the past traffic information and the start time.
The executable broadcast traffic information may contain the number of the second terminals accessible for each of the second message communication processing apparatus every period of time from the start time of the transmission of the broadcast data to the end time of the transmission of the broadcast data.
The means for generating executable broadcast traffic information may use the number of broadcast calls, the number of general calls, the average number of destinations, and type and number of resources contained in the past traffic information corresponding to any one or more of the start time of transmission of the broadcast data, date of the time, one-or more-months-term including the date, the number of week including the date within a month, date of the week of the date, and whether the date is holiday.
The means for generating executable broadcast traffic information may further use current traffic for compensating the executable broadcast traffic information.